The timing for this latest episode seemed a little off and both confusing. At first, the episode was supposed to be released on 9/26 and then it was revealed that this would be the release date for the trailer and the game would come out a week later. While I didn’t mind the week waiting time, I did mind that the schedule was a little confusing. Coming off of a lackluster last episode, I was eager to see where this one was going and hopefully see where this season was going.
Picking up right where the first episode left off, the Riddler is dead and Batman has either made friends or enemies of The Agency. There’s one thing though, Amanda Waller, leader of The Agency, knows that not only are you Batman, but also Bruce Wayne. Knowing that she knows your secret identity might change how you play now and it might not. Moving on though, you’ll spend most of this episode as Bruce as you infiltrate the Riddler’s gang who are still going on with their plans despite his death. This means that you’ll have to basically team up with the Joker for this one and get introduced to new characters like Harley Quinn, Bane, and Mr. Freeze. Your task for this episode is for them to accept you and let you in to their little club of criminal activities. This might make Bruce have to do some questionable things and by the end of the episode you’ll get a surprise re-appearance of a character from last season.
Apparently my decisions don’t matter. Do they Telltale? Last episode, spoiler alert, I killed off an Agency member to save another. Then in this episode, he magically appears again alive and well. Yet, when I go to my codex it clearly states that he’s dead and that as Batman I made the hard decision to sacrifice his life for another. What the hell Telltale? In a game where the story is shaped around my decisions, this was a really bad misstep.
Overall I enjoyed this episode a lot, despite my decisions obviously not mattering all that much in certain scenes. I enjoyed going along with the duplicity of playing Bruce as the bad guy and charming my way into the Riddler’s gang that is now being run by Harley Quinn. There are some Batman scenes in the game so it does actually feel like a Batman game, but coming out from behind the mask for most of the episode was really one of the upsides of this episode. I’m continuing to enjoy how the choices made throughout the game have a more personal effect on each and every character rather than a general you and this percent of people did this while this percent of people did something else. While that’s still there I really like seeing how Bruce / Batman is seen in the eyes of different people. It’s an interesting aspect and really adds to the overall game.
The playability of this game was a little iffy this time around. Loading times were a little longer and it felt like in a few spots the game was going to stall. There was also the little misstep of not picking up on my decisions. This also happened in Minecraft: Story Mode Season 2 – Episode 3 – Jailhouse Block, which you can read my review of here. This isn’t a good trend for Telltale since their games are heavily based on player decision. There was also the little problem of the game crashing after the actual game played out. I went to get my episode decision snapshot, like I normally do and when I did, the game crashed. It was weird, but not a good thing. Other than that, I found the Quicktime events to run flawlessly and effortlessly which was nice since there was a lot of them. Only one during the course of the epiosde tripped me up a little causing me to start over.
The graphics for this episode remain the same from the last episode and the last season and are one of the highlights of the series as a whole. They really make you feel like you’re in a Batman comic which is what I’m assuming that Telltale was going for. In that respect I have to say good on you Telltale for a job well done in the graphics department.
Finish this episode and you’ll get yourself another 6 trophies closer to the platinum trophy for this game. As with the episode before, just play the game like you normally would in order to get the trophies since there is no need to do anything special.
As always there is no multiplayer for this game, but there is of course the constant reminder of the crowd play feature. I’ve come to the realization that I’m never going to use this feature. If you have any experience when it comes to this feature make sure to let me know in the comments section below.
Overall I give this episode a 2.5 out of 5.
What’s Great:
+ This episode really expands on the previous episode giving this season an actual direction to go in.
+ An episode that was more interesting than the first one especially since as Bruce you have to infiltrate Harley Quinn’s gang an get on her good side.
+ The graphics continue to be a plus when it comes to this game as they only enhance the overall game play.
What’s Not So Great:
– The loading times taking longer and almost stalling didn’t help this episode one bit and were the cause of some tension as I played.
– In a game where your decisions tailor the story and the general direction of how things play out, apparently my decisions didn’t matter all that much and that one little scene ruined it for me as it was constantly nagging me in the back of my mind to try to think back and figure out what I did last episode.
I know my rating for this episode, which was actually good, was a little harsh, but the reasoning behind that is because of the whole decisions not mattering thing. I can overlook the loading time fails and the almost stalling, but the decision thing really just ticks me off. Don’t make me make life or death decisions within the game only to change them in the next episode. This seems like a common trend since two games have done this now and it’s not a good way going forward. For now I’m going to say to hold off on this game until there are some more patches that hopefully fix this issue. Other than that after the cliffhanger ending, I look forward to seeing how the next episode plays out. Here’s hoping that my decisions actually carry over to the next episode.
Spoilers! Below are the choices that I made for the first episode.
1 Broke Gamer Girl 